Driven for Success: HESP Grad Student William Bologna

William Bologna applied to the Clinical Audiology Program in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences because of its excellent outplacement opportunities and the option to transition into a Ph.D. track. But beyond academic or career advancement, William was driven to join a program that will help him help others.

“Speech communication is one of our most precious abilities as humans, and so learning how to preserve functional hearing with age is very important to me,” he said.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"1385","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 200px; height: 150px; margin: 5px; float: left;"}}]]William’s dissertation research focuses on the role acoustic cues and attention on perceptual organization of speech sounds in realistic listening environments. “Relative to younger adults, older adults require a more advantageous signal-to-noise ratio in a fluctuating background, and they are more likely to mistake speech from a background talker for the intended message. My work will determine if these age-related changes in speech perception may be attributed to declines in perceptual organization, or in the contributions of attention to speech perception with a competing talker, or both,” he explained.

Last year, William received the New Century Scholars Doctoral Scholarship. The award is granted by the American Speech-Language Hearing Foundation and provides $10,000 to 10 Ph.D. students each year. The award is extremely valuable to William because it helps him demonstrate a continuous trend of success when he starts applying for post-doctoral traineeships. The award also helps to lighten the financial burden associated with obtaining two concurrent doctoral degrees. 

“I am dedicated to following in the footsteps of the leaders of my field, so that one day I can be a leader of students who will follow in my footsteps. I am grateful that the American Speech-Language Hearing Foundation has recognized my commitment to research and to my career as a teacher-investigator,” William said. 

William has taken full advantage of the resources here at Maryland by working with experts in his field at every step of his graduate education. He also had exceptional clinical training and research experiences. His outplacement sites in the Clinical Audiology Program were located at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Institutes of Health—a type of experience uniquely possible to HESP students, who benefit from the program’s proximity to D.C. and the programs connections in the area. 

After graduation, William will pursue a post-doctoral traineeship at a lab to help him prepare to submit his first R01 grant as an independent investigator. His ultimate career goal it to be a tenured professor and an independent scientist—and to make a difference.

 “My student experience in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences has shown me that I can ‘Be the Solution.’ The University of Maryland is training students to become leaders. As a student in BSOS, I learned to understand and realize this potential in myself. That lesson was far more valuable than anything I learned in the classroom, and came only through hard work and tireless effort. My professors and clinical supervisors in BSOS pushed me to be my best, so that I could learn what I was truly capable of,” William said.

Published on Mon, Nov 17, 2014 - 4:07PM